Sentencing in $11-Million S&L; Fraud Is Delayed

LOS ANGELES — Sentencing for former Newport Beach businessman Michael E. Parker, convicted of what prosecutors said was one of the largest savings and loan frauds in Southern California, was postponed until Monday.

U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi on Tuesday delayed sentencing, evidently to take more time to consider his decision.

Federal prosecutors are asking that Parker be put in prison for nearly 20 years. Parker’s lawyers are requesting a five-year sentence.

Parker, 45, was convicted in April by a federal court jury of defrauding Columbia Savings & Loan in Beverly Hills of $11 million.

After his conviction, he pleaded guilty to defrauding another savings and loan and two banks of $19 million. Some of that money was recovered. In return for the guilty pleas, prosecutors agreed not to ask for additional prison time for those crimes.

Parker’s company, Parker North American Corp. in Costa Mesa, sold leases on bank equipment as a tax shelter to Columbia. But some of those investments were phony and the value of others inflated, the jury found.

In asking for a five-year sentence, Parker used the defense he put up at his trial: Siphoning off $11 million from the thrift was not a crime, because top Columbia executives knew about it and approved it. Prosecutors responded in court papers that the jury already rejected that argument.

Parker also argued that the government is singling him out for an excessively harsh sentence. Prosecutors replied that “the government knows of no other defendant facing sentencing” in the Los Angeles metropolitan area “who has four separate felony fraud convictions outstanding, all with multimillion-dollar losses.”